The government doesn't expect to get it's money back from GM or Chrysler.

Quote:

WASHINGTON - The federal government is unlikely to recoup all of the billions of dollars that it has invested in General Motors and Chrysler, according to a new congressional oversight report assessing the automakers' rescue.The report said that a $5.4 billion portion of the $10.5 billion owed by Chrysler is "highly unlikely" to be repaid, while full recovery of the $50 billion sunk into GM would require the company's stock to reach unprecedented heights.
"Although taxpayers may recover some portion of their investment in Chrysler and GM, it is unlikely they will recover the entire amount," according to the report, which is scheduled to be released Wednesday.

That one should have been obvious from the beginning... They basically gave the money to the UAW.

The TARP funds that recapitalized banks and brokerage houses at least on paper have a good chance of returning a profit. TARP funds handed over to union goons to keep failed businesses running didn't even have a chance to work on paper.

The "kindest" solution to the situation, as it developed, would have been to allow the Companies in question to go bankrupt and either "sell off their assets" or restructure.

Competition in a free market, which has worked very well over the years, rewards Companies that are efficient and offer a worthy (or demanded) product and lets those who can no longer remain in competition loose.

If the Companies in question had been allowed to restructure and/or downsize to match demand (and costs of operation), who knows how the scenario might have turned out.

Now we will never know. Yet the Government chose to interfere and support, with OUR money, obviously failing entities. (Then turns right around and uses OUR money to try to rebuild "demand" with the cash for clunkers program.)(Which, incidently, lost 2.2 Billion in material, cars and parts, to the secondary market dealers. Last figs I heard. Prices in Mom and Pop well used cars lots HAVE to go up as a result. THAT will really help the "poor", the general customers of said car dealers.)

I thought the Dems were "all about" helping the poor. Oooooops. Frankly I think this is more than likely about "helping the UAW". But that's just me.

GG

__________________
"The will of a section rooted in self interest, should not outweigh the vital interests of a whole people." -Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain-

That one should have been obvious from the beginning... They basically gave the money to the UAW.

Just like Amtrak was founded to protect railroad workers' pensions, GM and Chrysler were bailed out to protect auto workers' pensions. I wonder which out of date industry loaded with a shiftless unionized workforce will enjoy Federal largess next.

__________________I was married for two ******* years! Hell would be like Club Med! - Sam Kinison

Just like Amtrak was founded to protect railroad workers' pensions, GM and Chrysler were bailed out to protect auto workers' pensions. I wonder which out of date industry loaded with a shiftless unionized workforce will enjoy Federal largess next.

I wonder which out of date industry loaded with a shiftless unionized workforce will enjoy Federal largess next.

Sounds just like good old British Industry in the 70's

Expect a winter of discontent very soon...

...followed by your own version of Maggie Thatcher from the right of the Republican Party!

At roughly the same time that British industry was sliding into oblivion, and just a few years before your winter of discontent, us New Yorkers had the 1975 Fiscal Crisis: the City of New York, unable to meet its debt obligations, its basic operating expenses, even its payroll, was denied further credit by virtually all concerned. New York was on its knees. The tax base had fled to the suburbs, and any semblance of normal economic, business, political, or social activity pretty much came to a grinding halt. Pundits and public alike agreed: New York was dead. The very same policies that Pres Obama is espousing today are the very ones that brought New York to the abyss thirty-four years ago. Why any who can remember those events -- especially those who were living here at the time -- would espouse those policies now is utterly beyond me. I guess that the Spaniard was right: those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. We're going to repeat the experience of NY in the '70's, only on a national scale.

__________________I was married for two ******* years! Hell would be like Club Med! - Sam Kinison